Wireless networks are composed of a set of devices called wireless network nodes (or simply “nodes”) that locally generate data and report this information wirelessly (e.g., with radio transmission) to their peers or a centralized management application. In some wireless network systems, communication among synchronized nodes is organized as a set of links, scheduled in time into a periodic communications superframe. This type of organized communication scheme can save power by minimizing the total time each node needs to have its transmitter and receiver powered on while still ensuring reliable data transfer and hopping over different communication channels. Overlaying superframes can be designed for different communication needs (e.g., system startup, normal operation, node diagnostics, emergency alarm propagation), and nodes can individually switch various superframes on and off as necessary. One application of a superframe is to schedule advertising packet transmissions from all nodes in the networks to give new nodes an opportunity to discover potential neighbors in the network. After discovering one or more neighbors, a new node can join the network.
A new node typically turns on its receiver to a random channel and listens for advertisement packets that may be transmitted in its vicinity. Once it has successfully received an advertisement packet, it can synchronize itself to the network it is trying to join. In a slotted wireless communication system, after this synchronization, the joining node can listen more efficiently as its receiver need be active only during the times that packets could potentially be sent. However, the receiver must still listen on a random channel, and in an arbitrary situation, there is no upper bound on the amount of time that it takes the joining node to hear all of its potential neighbors transmit an advertisement packet. This is true even when joined nodes are transmitting at a bounded, periodic, rate. There is hence no guarantee that a joining node will know all of its neighbors after a joining timeout has elapsed.
In a centrally controlled wireless network, the centralized management application determines which neighbor relationships will serve as communication links as nodes report their potential neighbors during joining. The more elements reported by the joining node, and the more information is available on the quality of these neighbor paths, the better the decisions on communication links that can be made by the management application. Better initial decisions result in better network performance (e.g., lower latency of data packets generated by the nodes, lower average energy consumption of nodes, and shorter join times for new nodes).